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1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1The news that matters to you. A production of The Mac Weekly, the independent student newspaper of Macalester College.The Mac WeeklyThe Mac Weeklyksuzuki1@macalester.eduksuzuki1@macalester.edu (The Mac Weekly)Copyright 2020 GrovelandGroveland hosted by The Mac WeeklyThe Mac Weeklyhttps://assets.blubrry.com/coverart/orig/585084-231916.pnghttps://themacweekly.com
Amid global upheaval, Rivera’s inaugural weekhttps://themacweekly.com/78259/blm-at-macalester/amid-global-upheaval-riveras-inaugural-week/
https://themacweekly.com/78259/blm-at-macalester/amid-global-upheaval-riveras-inaugural-week/#respondSat, 06 Jun 2020 17:05:46 +0000https://themacweekly.com/?p=78259According to Macalester President Suzanne Rivera, the past week has been the longest of her professional career. Just a few days ago, she and her spouse were road-tripping to Minnesota from Cleveland, Ohio, following news reports of protests and demonstrations all the way to the Twin Cities. When Rivera arrived in St. Paul on Saturday,...

]]>According to Macalester President Suzanne Rivera, the past week has been the longest of her professional career.

Just a few days ago, she and her spouse were road-tripping to Minnesota from Cleveland, Ohio, following news reports of protests and demonstrations all the way to the Twin Cities. When Rivera arrived in St. Paul on Saturday, May 30, she walked into a situation she never could have imagined framing her first week as Macalester’s 17th president.

“If you asked me two weeks ago to predict what my first week on the job would look like, I never could have described this,” she said. “If you asked me to predict what next week is going to look like, I would say it would be foolish for me to even hazard a guess because everything could change again in the next 48 hours.”

Just a month ago, Rivera would have told you the biggest challenge she would tackle during her first year would be the COVID-19 pandemic — and that challenge is still on her plate.

But following the murder of George Floyd by four Minneapolis Police officers on May 25, the Twin Cities have ignited a global uprising against police violence and systemic racism.

So on Sunday, ahead of her first official day, Rivera sat down at her computer, scrapped the welcome email she had planned to send to the community, and wrote something new — something to fit the moment.

“Many people are expressing their righteous anger about systemic racism and other tools of oppression that divide our nation,” Rivera wrote. “I am proud to say that over the last week the Macalester community has stood firmly on the side of justice, fairness, and equality.

“Macalester family, now is not the time for hopelessness. It is a time for action.”

And so began Rivera’s first week as president.

For the past several days, Rivera has been on dozens of Zoom calls with faculty and staff, as well as students, to talk about the future of Macalester as it faces the threat of COVID-19 and confronts racial injustices at the college and beyond.

“In moments like this, if we don’t articulate our values, then what we essentially are doing is saying that the status quo is acceptable to us,” Rivera said. “And I don’t find the status quo acceptable.”

Students are calling on Rivera to put the weight of the institution’s influence and resources behind that sentiment.

In a June 1 letter addressed to the college’s leadership, the Black Liberation Affairs Committee (BLAC) demanded the college stand in support of black students fighting on the frontlines of the battle for justice. The letter was cosigned by several cultural orgs and identity collectives and published on the @blmatmac Instagram.

“When we look at the Macalester website or the Macalester Instagram we should see resources to help us, we should see the school sponsoring bail funds, and the school denouncing the presence of the National Guard and the racist curfew,” the letter reads.

“Our pictures are plastered across the website because apparently the school loves diversity: Love us by showing public and prideful support for our struggle,” it continued.

On Tuesday, June 2, Rivera met with leaders from BLAC and BLM to discuss a course of action for the college. At the end of the meeting, Rivera requested additional time to do further research into the college’s capacity to meet several of their requests.

At the time of this article’s publication, that discussion was ongoing. On Friday, June 5, Rivera sent her official response to BLAC, and was awaiting reply.

Rivera said that, in all of her meetings so far, the community has met her with grace and patience.

“In every one of those meetings I have felt welcomed, I have felt supported,” she said. “I have felt — even when people were expressing frustration or making requests for things they felt the college needed to provide — those have all been offered in the most supportive and helpful way. I think everyone understands I still have a lot to learn.”

In her free moments, Rivera has been responding to emails and Twitter DMs from members of the community. She’s also been personally answering the hundreds of responses to that Monday welcome email.

Many people have been supportive of her message calling the community to action. Others have told her they felt her message didn’t go far enough and Rivera said she has accepted the constructive criticism as a reminder “there’s still more work to be done.”

The responses that have irked Rivera have been the few that reject her core message — the people who have been “appalled” by her words and those who have even pledged to stop donating to Macalester as a consequence.

“I think it’s very sad that there are people that were offended by what I had to say on Monday because to me, it’s actually not controversial to say you’re against police brutality,” Rivera said. “It’s not controversial to say you’re against racism.”

For Rivera, speaking out against injustice was a core tenet of her upbringing. She has been a lifelong protester and was taking her now-grown children to protests from the time they were young.

“I was raised to believe that protest is patriotic and that when you see something that you think isn’t right, that it’s your duty and your obligation to say something about it,” Rivera said.

“My family left a country at the time of a revolution and that country now does not have freedom of expression and freedom of speech,” she continued. “It was really an important principle in my family growing up to love the United States and appreciate it, but also to hold it accountable for living up to its values.”

That’s why Rivera attended a protest on Tuesday with her spouse, Associate Chaplain for Jewish Life Emma Kippley-Ogman and College Chaplain Kelly Stone. The march on University Ave. in Midway was an interfaith protest led by black clergy members.

“I was really glad to have the opportunity to walk with fellow members of the Mac community, but also just fellow members of the St. Paul community,” Rivera said. “It felt right to be with other people making a statement… about the things we care about.”

But even as Rivera engages with the community in its fight for racial justice, she is still working on the other pressing issues.

Rivera is still meeting with Macalester’s COVID task force, trying to figure out how to get the campus back to in-person learning by Sept. 2. She’s still pondering potential new protocols, which may range from keeping physical distance in classrooms to staggering class times to grab-and-go lunches at Cafe Mac.

Rivera said she’s especially concerned with addressing the needs of students who may not be able to come back to campus at the beginning of the semester: students who are at a higher risk for contracting the disease, or international students who may not be able to get visas.

These extraordinary circumstances extend to Rivera’s personal life too. For now, she and her spouse are living out of duffle bags at an AirBnB in St. Paul. Her children, who live on opposite coasts, are going out to protest every day in their home cities, and while she supports their work, Rivera worries about them.

“My son is in Seattle and he’s two hours behind us,” Rivera said. “So, I don’t go to sleep at night until I know that he’s safe.”

Taking over Macalester’s presidency was always going to be a challenge. Now, it’s an unprecedented challenge.

“Even as I thought about it on February 1, before the virus, before the murder of George Floyd, I thought this was going to be a really difficult job to do and I was anxious and worried about how to meet the challenge,” Rivera said. “Of course I still find the responsibility awesome, but the responsibility has just increased exponentially and in ways I never would have dreamed.”

This may have been the longest week of Rivera’s professional career — but the work is just beginning.

“Macalester is my top priority from the minute I wake up in the morning to when I go to bed at night,” Rivera said. “I’m running as fast as I can.”

On Saturday morning, Macalester announced that it would match up to $20,000 in donations to “select organizations that support Black communities, communities of color, and the fight for racial justice.” The Mac Weekly will continue to report on the college’s response to the Twin Cities movement for black lives as the story develops.

]]>https://themacweekly.com/78259/blm-at-macalester/amid-global-upheaval-riveras-inaugural-week/feed/0Photo story: A funeral in Minneapolis for George Floydhttps://themacweekly.com/78238/blm-at-macalester/photo-story-a-funeral-in-minneapolis-for-george-floyd/
https://themacweekly.com/78238/blm-at-macalester/photo-story-a-funeral-in-minneapolis-for-george-floyd/#respondFri, 05 Jun 2020 00:44:14 +0000https://themacweekly.com/?p=78238The post Photo story: A funeral in Minneapolis for George Floyd appeared first on The Mac Weekly.
]]>Hundreds gathered outside North Central University in Minneapolis Thursday afternoon as family and friends of George Floyd held a memorial inside. As they left the chapel, Mel Reeves, Toshira Garraway and a number of local activists turned and spoke to the crowd. “We are going to keep him alive,” Reeves said. “We plan on making this system choke on the name of George Floyd.”Photos by Kori Suzuki ’21. Faces of individual protesters have been obscured.Hundreds gathered outside North Central University in Minneapolis Thursday afternoon as family and friends of George Floyd held a memorial inside. As they left the chapel, Mel Reeves, Toshira Garraway and a number of local activists turned and spoke to the crowd. “We are going to keep him alive,” Reeves said. “We plan on making this system choke on the name of George Floyd.” Photos by Kori Suzuki ’21. Faces of individual protesters have been obscured.Hundreds gathered outside North Central University in Minneapolis Thursday afternoon as family and friends of George Floyd held a memorial inside. As they left the chapel, Mel Reeves, Toshira Garraway and a number of local activists turned and spoke to the crowd. “We are going to keep him alive,” Reeves said. “We plan on making this system choke on the name of George Floyd.” Photos by Kori Suzuki ’21. Faces of individual protesters have been obscured.Hundreds gathered outside North Central University in Minneapolis Thursday afternoon as family and friends of George Floyd held a memorial inside. As they left the chapel, Mel Reeves, Toshira Garraway and a number of local activists turned and spoke to the crowd. “We are going to keep him alive,” Reeves said. “We plan on making this system choke on the name of George Floyd.” Photos by Kori Suzuki ’21. Faces of individual protesters have been obscured.Hundreds gathered outside North Central University in Minneapolis Thursday afternoon as family and friends of George Floyd held a memorial inside. As they left the chapel, Mel Reeves, Toshira Garraway and a number of local activists turned and spoke to the crowd. “We are going to keep him alive,” Reeves said. “We plan on making this system choke on the name of George Floyd.” Photos by Kori Suzuki ’21. Faces of individual protesters have been obscured.Hundreds gathered outside North Central University in Minneapolis Thursday afternoon as family and friends of George Floyd held a memorial inside. As they left the chapel, Mel Reeves, Toshira Garraway and a number of local activists turned and spoke to the crowd. “We are going to keep him alive,” Reeves said. “We plan on making this system choke on the name of George Floyd.” Photos by Kori Suzuki ’21. Faces of individual protesters have been obscured.Hundreds gathered outside North Central University in Minneapolis Thursday afternoon as family and friends of George Floyd held a memorial inside. As they left the chapel, Mel Reeves, Toshira Garraway and a number of local activists turned and spoke to the crowd. “We are going to keep him alive,” Reeves said. “We plan on making this system choke on the name of George Floyd.” Photos by Kori Suzuki ’21. Faces of individual protesters have been obscured.Hundreds gathered outside North Central University in Minneapolis Thursday afternoon as family and friends of George Floyd held a memorial inside. As they left the chapel, Mel Reeves, Toshira Garraway and a number of local activists turned and spoke to the crowd. “We are going to keep him alive,” Reeves said. “We plan on making this system choke on the name of George Floyd.” Photos by Kori Suzuki ’21. Faces of individual protesters have been obscured.Hundreds gathered outside North Central University in Minneapolis Thursday afternoon as family and friends of George Floyd held a memorial inside. As they left the chapel, Mel Reeves, Toshira Garraway and a number of local activists turned and spoke to the crowd. “We are going to keep him alive,” Reeves said. “We plan on making this system choke on the name of George Floyd.” Photos by Kori Suzuki ’21. Faces of individual protesters have been obscured.Hundreds gathered outside North Central University in Minneapolis Thursday afternoon as family and friends of George Floyd held a memorial inside. As they left the chapel, Mel Reeves, Toshira Garraway and a number of local activists turned and spoke to the crowd. “We are going to keep him alive,” Reeves said. “We plan on making this system choke on the name of George Floyd.” Photos by Kori Suzuki ’21. Faces of individual protesters have been obscured.Hundreds gathered outside North Central University in Minneapolis Thursday afternoon as family and friends of George Floyd held a memorial inside. As they left the chapel, Mel Reeves, Toshira Garraway and a number of local activists turned and spoke to the crowd. “We are going to keep him alive,” Reeves said. “We plan on making this system choke on the name of George Floyd.” Photos by Kori Suzuki ’21. Faces of individual protesters have been obscured.

Hundreds gathered outside North Central University in Minneapolis Thursday afternoon as family and friends of George Floyd held a memorial inside. As they left the chapel, Mel Reeves, Toshira Garraway and a number of local activists turned and spoke to the crowd. “We are going to keep him alive,” Reeves said. “We plan on making this system choke on the name of George Floyd.” Photos by Kori Suzuki ’21. Faces of individual protesters have been obscured.Hundreds gathered outside North Central University in Minneapolis Thursday afternoon as family and friends of George Floyd held a memorial inside. As they left the chapel, Mel Reeves, Toshira Garraway and a number of local activists turned and spoke to the crowd. “We are going to keep him alive,” Reeves said. “We plan on making this system choke on the name of George Floyd.” Photos by Kori Suzuki ’21. Faces of individual protesters have been obscured.Hundreds gathered outside North Central University in Minneapolis Thursday afternoon as family and friends of George Floyd held a memorial inside. As they left the chapel, Mel Reeves, Toshira Garraway and a number of local activists turned and spoke to the crowd. “We are going to keep him alive,” Reeves said. “We plan on making this system choke on the name of George Floyd.” Photos by Kori Suzuki ’21. Faces of individual protesters have been obscured.Hundreds gathered outside North Central University in Minneapolis Thursday afternoon as family and friends of George Floyd held a memorial inside. As they left the chapel, Mel Reeves, Toshira Garraway and a number of local activists turned and spoke to the crowd. “We are going to keep him alive,” Reeves said. “We plan on making this system choke on the name of George Floyd.” Photos by Kori Suzuki ’21. Faces of individual protesters have been obscured.

]]>https://themacweekly.com/78238/blm-at-macalester/photo-story-a-funeral-in-minneapolis-for-george-floyd/feed/0Minneapolis has begun to dismantle its police statehttps://themacweekly.com/78228/blm-at-macalester/minneapolis-has-begun-to-dismantle-its-police-state/
https://themacweekly.com/78228/blm-at-macalester/minneapolis-has-begun-to-dismantle-its-police-state/#respondThu, 04 Jun 2020 06:48:38 +0000https://themacweekly.com/?p=78228Shortly after 5 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon, standing just outside the entrance to the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) building in North Minneapolis, Robin Wonsley shrugged her shoulders. Some 20 minutes before, Wonlsey, an organizer with Educate Minnesota, had given an impassioned speech to a crowd of protesters imploring MPS’s Board of Education to cut its...

]]>Demonstrators gather around the Minneapolis Public Schools building on June 2nd to encourage the school board to cut ties with the Minneapolis Police Department. Photo by Abe Asher ’20.

Shortly after 5 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon, standing just outside the entrance to the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) building in North Minneapolis, Robin Wonsley shrugged her shoulders.

Some 20 minutes before, Wonlsey, an organizer with Educate Minnesota, had given an impassioned speech to a crowd of protesters imploring MPS’s Board of Education to cut its ties with the Minneapolis Police Department — who she described as the “number one terrorists” in the city.

Now, she was milling about, cooling off, and trying to predict how the school board would vote.

“It’s hard to say,” she said. “I hope that this community pressure, as well as the surrounding uprising, really affirms for them that MPS: you need to cut those ties.”

Wonsley needn’t have worried. Less than an hour later, word came down decisively: the Board of Education voted unanimously, 10-0, to terminate the district’s million-plus dollar contract with the Minneapolis Police Department.

Something is happening in Minneapolis, the epicenter of what is now a national uprising against systemic racism and police brutality and an international movement for black lives.

All four police officers have been charged in the murder of George Floyd. Mutual aid efforts across the Twin Cities have been wildly successful. The Minnesota Freedom Fund has raised in excess of $4 million.

And on Tuesday, following a rally which drew Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and a host of passionate educators and young people, the school board kicked the police department out of the city’s public schools.

“This wouldn’t have happened two months ago,” educational studies professor Brian Lozenski said. “I would have said there’s no chance.”

But now, all of the sudden, the iron tight hold that local police have held on political power in Minneapolis is unraveling.

In addition to Minneapolis Public Schools, the University of Minnesota, the Minneapolis Park Board, and a host of private organizations including the Walker Art Center have also cut ties with the police department. One city councilor is talking openly about abolishing the department altogether.

“It’s a powerful moment,” Lozenski said. “This is something that could spread across the country.”

Indeed, school board member Josh Pauly said after the vote that school officials representing districts from Oregon to Illinois to New York have reached out to ask for guidance on how to get the police out of their schools.

The movement appears to be spreading across the Mississippi River as well. St. Paul’s school board has announced that it will reevaluate its relationship with St. Paul police next week, and could vote to terminate its contract with the department before the end of the month.

Police officers are currently commonplace in American high schools. However, while MPS had contracted with the Minneapolis Police Department since 1967, the phenomenon of police in schools is relatively new — largely a product of the Columbine school shooting.

“It was a response mechanism for suburban white kids where there were massive fears about [people] coming in and shooting up schools,” Wonsley said.

What the practice turned into, however, was another means of surveilling and criminalizing black and brown bodies within schools — not neutralizing threats outside their doors.

“That’s how it is manifested in our schools,” Wonsley said. “Through metal detectors. Through police officers. In my hometown of Chicago, a couple of public schools even had cells in the basement. We literally rearranged our public schools into prisons.”

Now, in Minneapolis and around the country, the idea that police officers make schools safer is eroding.

That much was clear on Tuesday night, where the scene at the Minneapolis Public School building before the vote was much more community meeting than protest. There was no major police presence, no helicopters whirring overhead, and a crowd that numbered in the hundreds rather than the thousands.

True to community meeting form, it wasn’t without conflict. A group of students and teachers from North Community High School came to speak in support of Charles Adams, a Minneapolis police officer who serves as the school’s Security Resource Officer and head football coach.

They don’t want to see Adams go. One student’s mother, Sherry Kanatzer, said that this was the first protest her son Dontavious had attended all week. Longtime North High history teacher Tom Lachermeier called Adams “one of the only people in the building who has never left.”

Lozenski said Adams should stay at North as well — but under different circumstances.

“He should be in the school,” Lozenski said of Adams. “But not as a cop. He should be in the school as a cultural liaison, someone who cares about students, and doesn’t have to be in any official role with the state.”

Once school districts divest from police, that should be a possibility. Omar, a mother of three Minneapolis Public School students and a graduate of Edison High School, did not mince words in her address to the crowd.

“We don’t have enough money to have enough school social workers,” she said. “We don’t have enough money to have healthcare providers in our schools. But somehow we find enough money to police and brutalize our young children in our schools.

Now, Minneapolis has taken a first step towards rectifying that.

“I would love to see a huge investment in social services and counseling, so students have wrap-around services,” Lozenski said. “I would love to see money invested in community organizations that have been creating lots of viable spaces.

“Students who struggle in school often leave school and go to a community center where they are thriving,” he continued. “I want those community centers to have access to the school and be able to be paid for their time.”

The school board has yet to decide how it will replace the police presence in Minneapolis schools. Superintendent Ed Graff is now charged with formulating a new safety plan by mid-August.

Lozenski said that any new plan must not continue with the “hyper-surveillance” of students. But he is hopeful that now, given the intensity of the uprisings and the speed of recent political action, landmark positive changes in education and beyond are within reach.

“This is the time,” he said. “If not now, when? If we’re not prepared to drastically make changes now, then when are we going to do it?

]]>https://themacweekly.com/78228/blm-at-macalester/minneapolis-has-begun-to-dismantle-its-police-state/feed/0@blmatmac students spearhead anti-racist action at Macalesterhttps://themacweekly.com/78224/blm-at-macalester/blmatmac-students-spearhead-anti-racist-action-at-macalester/
https://themacweekly.com/78224/blm-at-macalester/blmatmac-students-spearhead-anti-racist-action-at-macalester/#respondThu, 04 Jun 2020 04:26:34 +0000https://themacweekly.com/?p=78224On Friday, May 30, the Instagram account @blmatmac uploaded its first post. The caption declared that the page will be “dedicated to resources [and] support for black Macalester students as well as and information and updates for anti-racist allies.” In the five days since then, the page racked up more than 1000 followers. The account...

]]>On Friday, May 30, the Instagram account @blmatmac uploaded its first post. The caption declared that the page will be “dedicated to resources [and] support for black Macalester students as well as and information and updates for anti-racist allies.”

In the five days since then, the page racked up more than 1000 followers. The account has become a hub of resources for all Mac students participating in anti-racist action and protest sparked by the murder of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on Monday, May 25.

The page is auxiliary to Black Liberation Affairs Committee (BLAC), a black student organization at Macalester.

“A lot of us, specifically black students, were really, really overwhelmed,” @blmatmac administrator Fatiya Kedir ’21 said. “First, we just wanted to connect with each other… but we also saw that there were a lot of resources and information [on anti-racist action] all over… and we wanted something to reflect that in one place.”

Although five students hold the password to the account, the posts are vetted by a large group of black students and allies. The account is a collaborative, fluid endeavor, and the page’s administrators want to keep it that way.

“We have people who are rising sophomores all the way up to graduates contributing to the page, and alumni who are contributing to the page,” @blmatmac administrator Kubunya Karubiu ’22 said.

“A lot of the stuff we put out through the page are brought to us by community members who send us direct messages, or message us personally, and provide us resources that they think would be beneficial for the collective community.”

Adminisrators have used the page to coordinate rides to protests, provide financial assistance to protesting students and share educational resources and information related to anti-racist activism.

The outpouring of support for the page has been “awe-inspiring,” according to Karubiu.

“I don’t think there’s been a day where I haven’t had some new person or multiple new people contact me or contact the page asking to get involved.” Karubiu said. “People haven’t missed a step.”

The account will continue to be an anti-racist resource beyond the scope of the current protests. Throughout the summer and into next year, administrators say they are committed to challenging racism and anti-blackness at Macalester.

“We do not want to just be a trend,” @blmatmac administrator Juan Diaz ‘22 said. “There’s definitely a lot more that can be done, and I think there’s a lot more Macalester can do.”

“We want to make sure that we are being part of the community, not just a private school on Grand where people in the community are like “what is Macalester about?”

Some of these students have called on Macalester’s administration to answer that question.

On June 1, President Suzanne Rivera’s first day leading the college, BLAC members posted an open letter to Macalester’s senior administration on Instagram, calling on them to take stronger anti-racist action. @blmatmac reposted the letter, which was co-signed by several other student orgs and identity collectives for students of color.

“Being anti-racist is how to show us love,” the letter reads. “Your students are on the frontlines right now in every city fighting for our own lives.

“When we look at the Macalester website or the Macalester Instagram we should see resources to help us, we should see the school sponsoring bail funds, and the school denouncing the presence of the National Guard and the racist curfew.”

Rivera posted a public response that same day on Macalester College’s official Instagram.

“I welcome direct communication from students and I am so glad you feel you can reach out to me about your needs and concerns,” Rivera’s response read.

Rivera praised the students’ calls for accountability and justice, and invited students to an open discussion about Macalester’s role in anti-racist action on Tuesday, June 2.

Neither Rivera nor the letters’ authors responded to questions from The Mac Weekly on the nature of their conversation by the time of publication. However, the college appears to have taken up some of the students’ requests.

On June 2, the Civic Engagement Center published a page of resources for anti-racist activism in the Twin Cities on its website. The list was the first submission on the Mac Daily newsletter, and was promoted on Macalester College’s official Instagram. Macalester also announced that the Macalester reunion has been suspended in light of recent events.

Just as @blmatmac admins have called on Macalester to commit themselves to anti-racist action, they hope that Macalester students will do the same.

“My desire is that everyone looks within themselves, figures out what their maximum is, what’s the most they can do right now, and then tries to do that,” Karubiu said.

“And if everyone were doing their personal maximum, whatever form or shape that takes, then I think that what is happening right now will be of actual consequence.”

]]>https://themacweekly.com/78224/blm-at-macalester/blmatmac-students-spearhead-anti-racist-action-at-macalester/feed/0Surrounded by National Guard, hundreds of volunteers provide relief at State Capitolhttps://themacweekly.com/78180/blm-at-macalester/surrounded-by-national-guard-hundreds-of-volunteers-provide-relief-at-state-capitol/
https://themacweekly.com/78180/blm-at-macalester/surrounded-by-national-guard-hundreds-of-volunteers-provide-relief-at-state-capitol/#respondWed, 03 Jun 2020 20:52:19 +0000https://themacweekly.com/?p=78180On a sunny, 90-degree day, in a crowd of thousands gathered on the Minnesota State Capitol lawn for the “Sit to Breathe” protest on Tuesday, June 2, people were turning down free water. Specifically, they were turning down water offered by members of the Minnesota National Guard, who were weaving through the crowd, in full...

On a sunny, 90-degree day, in a crowd of thousands gathered on the Minnesota State Capitol lawn for the “Sit to Breathe” protest on Tuesday, June 2, people were turning down free water.

Specifically, they were turning down water offered by members of the Minnesota National Guard, who were weaving through the crowd, in full military dress, handing out bottles to protesters. Near the edge of the crowd, the Guard had stacked cases and cases of water under tents to distribute.

But even as they asked nearly every passerby, most people refused, politely, to take any. Instead, they only accepted water from fellow protesters and more than 175 official event volunteers.

The protesters were following the lead of the organizers who, several times, denounced the massive military and police presence at the protest. The event was organized and run by high school students who spent the afternoon on the steps of the capitol, urging state leaders to combat police brutality.

Behind them, a line of tanks loomed, blocking the entrance to the Capitol building. Up the street, more armored vehicles and guards carrying rifles shut off the roads feeding into the quad. Individuals dressed all in black surveyed the protest from the capitol roof.

“People have been protesting for so long and nothing has changed, so the fact that you still stand for the National Guard or the police… says a lot about you,” one of the youth organizers, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Mac Weekly. “When you put on that uniform, that’s what you stand for — it doesn’t matter what you think anymore.”

Tuesday’s protest came after numerous viral photos and videos of police misconduct on social media — scenes of police taking a knee at protests only to use tear gas and rubber bullets on the same crowd only minutes later. For many participating in the movement, trust in the authorities is at absolute zero.

Instead, the crowd of protesters itself was dotted with coolers of water bottles and boxes of snacks. Dozens of participants brought their own stock to the protest to hand out.

Near the back of the capitol lawn, a large, blue and white umbrella stuck up over the heads of people walking down the sidewalk. The umbrella was attached to an ice cream cart run by a group of parents calling themselves Moms and Dads for Justice.

Waverley Booth owns the nonprofit ice cream cart — which she’s had to close since the start of the pandemic. Now, though, it’s filled with over 700 ice cream bars and 500 bottles of water.

But it wasn’t just ice cream that brought Booth to the protest. Booth is white, but her children are biracial. Her daughter, Isis, is a recent high school graduate and spoke at the sit-in.

“We are really here to support the young people,” Booth said. “They are all high school students who were speaking and who organized this themselves… We are really here to support them, we are not here for us.”

A group of six other Moms and Dads for Justice worked nearby. One of them handed an ice cream bar to a man named Josh Disher, who was pulling a wagon full of water and bags of chips.

Disher lives in South Minneapolis, just a few blocks from where the Minneapolis Police Department murdered George Floyd on May 25. Over the past several days, he has been working overtime to support his community.

When fires ravaged buildings across South Minneapolis, Disher volunteered to help clean up. At night, he’s been working with his neighborhood watch; during the day, he’s been delivering supplies to protesters.

“It’s tiring and exhausting, but it’s exhausting for everyone and it’s the least I could do,” Disher said. “If I could stay up all night, help out all the time, I would.”

While Disher personally doesn’t have strong feelings about the National Guard’s presence, he anticipated that others would.

“They’re just doing their jobs,” he said. “I know people won’t be grabbing waters from them, which is why we’re all out here doing this.”

Not everyone who came to distribute supplies had large carts of snacks. Some, like Tenille Warren, just brought a case of water.

“I’m feeling overwhelmed, I’m feeling sad, I’m feeling angry — I feel the love from people but I also feel the hate,” Warren said. “I just want to help. I feel like I’m doing a little part but we all need to do more.”

Across the street from the protest, a group of young women from St. Paul handed out water to people passing on the sidewalk. Ana Sanchez was among them. Her reasons for coming to the protest were personal. Two of her cousins, who were attending school in Mexico, were murdered.

“It’s hard to sleep at night because this is our battle too,” Sanchez said. “For even the United States to mistreat its own kind like that, that hurts deep down. You can feel it — our ancestors and everybody else who’s been mistreated.”

It wasn’t just people passing out water. Off-duty nurses roamed the lawn handing out electrolyte packets and carrying large first aid kits. A man on the sidewalk offered free bike repair to anyone at the protest.

Almost nobody took water from the National Guard — but many, many people leaned on the community itself for support. In the past week, these scenes have become almost commonplace — signs of a community learning to operate autonomously, without the aid of pillars of authority.

Eventually, members of the guard began to put their undistributed waters into the volunteers’ wagons.

It is that kind of moment that has youth organizers feeling cautiously optimistic. In years past, they’ve organized, protested, and seen miscarriage after miscarriage of justice. Now, they see the sheer number of volunteers and protesters as a good sign.

“It’s hard, but I feel like [events] like this make it a little easier,” one of the organizers said. “To know that there’s still hope and there’s people trying to make a change.”

Additional thanks to Maria, Katy, Angela, Jocelyn, Selena, and the nurses who also spoke to The Mac Weekly for this story. Other Moms and Dads for Justice are: Ray Eby, Anjeli Goel, Kelli Cox, Lisa Elsenbast, and Bridget and Jim McGreevy.

]]>https://themacweekly.com/78180/blm-at-macalester/surrounded-by-national-guard-hundreds-of-volunteers-provide-relief-at-state-capitol/feed/0Organizers turn Midtown Sheraton into housing sanctuaryhttps://themacweekly.com/78151/home/organizers-turn-midtown-sheraton-into-housing-sanctuary/
https://themacweekly.com/78151/home/organizers-turn-midtown-sheraton-into-housing-sanctuary/#commentsWed, 03 Jun 2020 02:08:22 +0000https://themacweekly.com/?p=78151The national television cameras congregated at the corner of 38th and Chicago Ave. on Monday morning, where, around noon, Terrence Floyd addressed a crowd gathered at the site of his brother’s murder to honor his memory and carry on the fight for peace and justice. It was a remarkable, moving sight. But about ten blocks...

]]>The entrance to the Midtown Sheraton, where over 200 people in need of shelter are staying during MSP’s enforced curfew. Photo by Kori Suzuki ’21.

The national television cameras congregated at the corner of 38th and Chicago Ave. on Monday morning, where, around noon, Terrence Floyd addressed a crowd gathered at the site of his brother’s murder to honor his memory and carry on the fight for peace and justice.

It was a remarkable, moving sight. But about ten blocks down Chicago Ave., past Powderhorn Park, past a row of buildings reduced to ash and foundation and countless houses adorned with signs calling for justice, something else was happening: a Sheraton hotel was full.

The Sheraton, a three-star hotel located on the same lot as the Midtown Global Market, is not ordinarily a memorable sight. It opened in 2005 and has been sold multiple times since, most recently in February to an investor named Jay Patel.

But on Monday afternoon, its doors were wide open, its lobby full of life. A handmade sign propped up against a reception podium announced an evening meeting for residents. Volunteers worked in the hotel kitchen, preparing bowls of cereal and cleaning.

Outside, someone had written the word “SANCTUARY” in black marker on a piece of cardboard and taped it to a stanchion just feet from the entrance.

In South Minneapolis, where police and far-right militants have terrorized protesters and targeted neighborhood businesses, the concept of communities protecting themselves through mutual aid networks is no longer abstract. What is happening at the Midtown Sheraton makes that clear.

On Friday afternoon, just past 4 p.m., Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and Gov. Tim Walz announced an 8 p.m. curfew for Minneapolis and St. Paul — signaling their intention to clear the streets with force.

For people without housing, that night was chaotic at best and violent at worst.

“People who are unsheltered were particularly vulnerable during this time for the reasons that we all understand… particularly people who were in the Greenway corridor,” Sheila Delaney, a resident of Loring Park and organizer at the hotel said.

“People were throwing things at them from bridges [and] threatening them, and then they literally weren’t safe from our police or national guard either,” she continued.

The next day, with an identical curfew in place, organizers focused on the city’s houseless and housing insecure population jumped into action.

A broken window of the Midtown Sheraton with a sign labelled “Sanctuary” taped to it. Photo by Kori Suzuki ’21.

The organizers knew that people needed a place to shelter, and felt that it would be too logistically challenging to transport people in the areas most heavily affected by violence to downtown Minneapolis, where many of the city’s hotels are concentrated.

They turned to the former Sheraton, where a handful of houseless people had stayed on Friday night, as the most accessible option.

“This hotel, being right on the Greenway, became the most obvious choice,” Delaney said.

The hotel’s owners planned to completely evacuate the building on Saturday afternoon, but, after negotiating with organizers, agreed to keep the hotel open and cede its day-to-day operation to the collective.

That night, some 150 people sheltered in the hotel. On Monday, that number had grown to 200 — with a waiting list of more than 60. Tuesday, the waiting list had grown to 115.

“These organizers were complete miracle workers,” Delaney said.

The plan might have come together suddenly, but the capacity to execute it has been years in the making. Delaney, for instance, was involved in work to shelter housing insecure people at the Drake Hotel, which was partially demolished after a Christmas Day fire last year.

Across the city and beyond, young people and older people, mutual aid veterans and mutual aid newcomers, are gaining real-time experience — not only in the pragmatics of organizing but in the practice of imagining, creating and believing in a different world.

The Sheraton sanctuary effort is about moving unsheltered people to safety. But to hear Delany tell it, the vision driving the effort is much more expansive than that.

“We are no longer simply allowing people to go unsheltered if they don’t want to be unsheltered,” she said. “We’re finally not only just saying, ‘Gosh, I wish we could do something’ — we are insisting that people are sheltered, which, for me, is radical and appropriate.”

In keeping with that pronouncement, Delaney and core organizers have made clear that they intend to continue operating the former hotel as a sanctuary indefinitely.

Their ability to do so will depend on their ability to keep bringing in resources from people around the Twin Cities, be it money, volunteer time, or supplies ranging from clothing to blankets to bar soap.

This, though, has been quite the start. In addition to fully staffing the hotel and raising funds, volunteers and residents have also kept watch to ensure that the building is protected at night.

It is not just this one housing effort, either. Emergency food banks around the Twin Cities are overflowing. Over the weekend, organizers at Seward Middle School put out a call for 85 food boxes for affected families. They received well over one thousand.

Neighborhoods have stepped up and stood together in other ways. The community defense networks that have formed over the last several days have not been perfect by any means, but they are a serious look at how people can protect each other in a world without police.

On Sunday afternoon in Stevens Square, for instance, a community group posted signs announcing a neighborhood watch along with safety tips, addresses of venues to seek medical attention and a number to call if people had questions or needed rides.

“Do not call the police,” the document read. “We do NOT want to escalate situations.”

This is, in many ways, a terrifying time to live in Minneapolis and to be an American. But for every gut-wrenching police action or speech from the White House, there has been a display of solidarity and love strong enough to serve as oxygen.

“The reason that many of the people are experiencing homelessness is because of systematic racism,” Delaney said. “We have gangster capitalism, and we have spent the history of our country not prioritizing humans.

]]>https://themacweekly.com/78151/home/organizers-turn-midtown-sheraton-into-housing-sanctuary/feed/1The stories behind the smoke: protest, solidarity in South Minneapolishttps://themacweekly.com/78141/home/the-stories-behind-the-smoke-protest-solidarity-in-south-minneapolis/
https://themacweekly.com/78141/home/the-stories-behind-the-smoke-protest-solidarity-in-south-minneapolis/#respondSun, 31 May 2020 07:03:48 +0000https://themacweekly.com/?p=78141With a crowd in the thousands raising their fists down the road, Andrew Smith stood clad in black, gray sweatshirt tied around his waist, recalling the moment when he first saw the video of George Floyd being murdered facedown in a South Minneapolis street. “I knew I shouldn’t have,” Smith said. “I knew I shouldn’t...

]]>Hundreds of protesters show solidarity for George Floyd on the corner of Nicollet Ave and E 31st St. Photo by Kori Suzuki ’21.

With a crowd in the thousands raising their fists down the road, Andrew Smith stood clad in black, gray sweatshirt tied around his waist, recalling the moment when he first saw the video of George Floyd being murdered facedown in a South Minneapolis street.

“I knew I shouldn’t have,” Smith said. “I knew I shouldn’t have watched it. Something told me it wasn’t going to be good for my soul, and it wasn’t. I remember just sitting there stuck, for like 30 minutes. Tears flowing, all that shit.”

Smith didn’t know what he was going to do. But he knew he had to do something.

So early on Saturday morning, he hopped on a flight from Charlotte to Minneapolis — and several hours later, found himself walking through a strip mall parking lot, past a boarded up Office Depot, taking in a scene both depressing and uplifting.

“I’m liking that there are people who are trying to clean up, give out water bottles, keep their city looking nice,” Smith said, as protestors diligently cleaned a burned Wells Fargo across the street. “And then you still have the others who are speaking out.”

It is the nature of the speaking out that is dividing opinion these days. Minneapolis and St. Paul have set curfews in an effort to keep protesters off the streets and limit property damage; the governor has called up the national guard.

Smith, surveying plenty of that property damage, was less than convinced of its importance.

“They try to change the narrative to say that this rioting shit doesn’t work, doesn’t help,” he said. “But people were peacefully trying to tell that cop to let that man up, and that didn’t work either. What would have happened if those cops were bum-rushed? Would that have been better?”

Smith was asking the real questions. How do you protect your community when violence is already present in it, wearing uniforms, snuffing out life?

Again on Saturday night, police officers at the fifth precinct in Minneapolis shot rubber bullets and tear gas into a crowd of protesters, firing at journalists and hitting civilians.

“When we heard about the Target getting burned, I couldn’t care less,” he said. “I would love for the small businesses, especially the minority-owned ones to be left out of it, but when you’re at war, you’re just at war.”

Indeed, it looks like war on Lake Street. Gov. Tim Walz sees it, which is why he told reporters on Saturday that what was happening in Minneapolis was reminiscent of “Mogadishu and Baghdad” — revealing more about himself than any of those three cities in the process.

Smith was in Minnesota for barely more than 24 hours. He left this morning. But he made it to the Cup Foods where George Floyd was murdered, on the corner of 38th and Chicago, where flowers and artwork and vows for justice cover the buildings and lie in the intersection.

If you want to see burning buildings in Minneapolis, you can do that. If you want to see broken glass in Minneapolis, you can do that. But the smoke won’t give you any easy answers about what is happening here.

Part of that is because there is no one narrative right now. Marauding white nationalists and far-right extremists — many of them local — are seizing an opportunity to attack black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) institutions and BIPOC people themselves. Others are seizing an opportunity to challenge the American status quo, in all kinds of ways.

Outside of that burned Wells Fargo across from the strip mall, the former site of the neighborhood baseball stadium where Ted Williams starred for the Minneapolis Millers, protesters amassed bottles of water, snacks, and other supplies.

It was a similar scene to that which has played out in numerous churches and community centers in both Minneapolis and St. Paul over the last several days, donations pouring in to keep protesters hydrated, fed, and cared for as well as is possible.

People all over the Twin Cities are picking each other up in tremendous displays of solidarity. People like Smith and grain farmer Randy Jasper, who drove four-and-a-half hours from Muscoda, Wis. to the protest with his wife Zena, have come to join them.

They’re worried about the escalating chaos. They’re not applauding the property destruction. But they are refusing, as those in power so often do, to focus on it.

Damon Williams, born and raised in Maplewood, Minn., lamented the damage to one of his favorite Twin Cities neighborhoods and accused an undercover police officer of instigating the rioting. But he declined to condemn the use of violence outright.

“Look, how long have we been protesting peacefully? Only time they get to listening is when shit gets torn up,” Williams said. “They talk about looting — the people with the privilege here looted the land that they are standing on right now.

“They don’t want to talk about that reality,” he continued.

As Williams knows, the realities in Minneapolis shift by zip code, now just as much as they ever have. On Nicollet Ave., a 23-year-old Kenyan immigrant named Hamdi Ahmed stood across the street from a row of burned buildings with her mother, sadness heavy in her voice.

“My family moved out from a war,” she said. “We came here to find peace.”

Ten minutes further south, just down the street from where a group of protesters demonstrated and listened to speeches outside of Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman’s leafy house three blocks from Lake Harriet, a man watered his sizable lawn uninterrupted.

This is Minneapolis. Not a city breaking, but one that has been broken — and, propelled by the same sickening feeling that Andrew Smith felt watching the video of George Floyd’s murder, is trying to heal itself.

]]>https://themacweekly.com/78141/home/the-stories-behind-the-smoke-protest-solidarity-in-south-minneapolis/feed/0Macalester offers to relocate students, employees as protests continuehttps://themacweekly.com/78137/home/macalester-offers-to-relocate-students-employees-as-protests-continue/
https://themacweekly.com/78137/home/macalester-offers-to-relocate-students-employees-as-protests-continue/#respondSun, 31 May 2020 00:03:30 +0000https://themacweekly.com/?p=78137Macalester is offering to relocate its students and employees away from their residences in the Twin Cities for at least Saturday night as protests continue to rage following the murder of George Floyd. “We are aware that some of our employees live in areas where they feel unsafe due to the social unrest currently ongoing...

]]>Macalester is offering to relocate its students and employees away from their residences in the Twin Cities for at least Saturday night as protests continue to rage following the murder of George Floyd.

“We are aware that some of our employees live in areas where they feel unsafe due to the social unrest currently ongoing in the Twin Cities,” Vice President of Administration and Finance David Wheaton wrote in an email to faculty and staff just past noon on Friday.

“We want all of you to be safe,” he continued. “The college will make temporary housing arrangements available in a local hotel, free of charge, to any employees and their families who feel unsafe in their homes.”

Several hours later, students received a similar email from Dean of Students DeMethra Bradley, who directed students to call Macalester Public Safety if they would like to be relocated.

Faculty and staff who wish to be relocated are being encouraged to make arrangements with two hotels in Burnsville, a Minneapolis suburb located south of Bloomington.

In an email to The Mac Weekly, Wheaton wrote that the hotels in Burnsville were selected because they lie close to the intersection of I-35E and I-35W, making them relatively easy to reach from both Minneapolis and St. Paul.

If employees would rather move to a hotel in a different location, they have the option to do so and will be reimbursed by the college.

According to Wheaton, no student or employee expressed any concern about their personal safety to the college. Instead, he and his colleagues decided to make their unprecedented offer proactively.

“The idea was entirely spontaneous, suggested in a senior staff email thread this morning after last night’s continuing disturbances,” Wheaton wrote. “It was simply a gesture to the members of our community who might be affected by this evolving situation.”

Wheaton wrote that the relocation is “intended to be a short term measure,” and that the college will reevaluate on Sunday.

“We’re hoping that it won’t be necessary for more than one night,” he wrote.

At this time, Macalester has no plans to board any college buildings, even as businesses on the commercial stretch of Grand Ave. just past Macalester Street have all boarded their windows to protect against property damage.

]]>https://themacweekly.com/78137/home/macalester-offers-to-relocate-students-employees-as-protests-continue/feed/0Amid the protests, echoes of past pain on University Ave.https://themacweekly.com/78112/home/amid-the-protests-echoes-of-past-pain-on-university-ave/
https://themacweekly.com/78112/home/amid-the-protests-echoes-of-past-pain-on-university-ave/#respondSat, 30 May 2020 17:23:19 +0000https://themacweekly.com/?p=78112As hundreds of people streamed onto University Ave. on Friday morning to help clean up after protests rocked the street the night before, Joseph Ray Conley Jr., a day shy of 28 years old, stood outside of the BP station on the corner of University and Hamline and screamed at the passersby. He wasn’t screaming...

As hundreds of people streamed onto University Ave. on Friday morning to help clean up after protests rocked the street the night before, Joseph Ray Conley Jr., a day shy of 28 years old, stood outside of the BP station on the corner of University and Hamline and screamed at the passersby.

He wasn’t screaming about George Floyd. He was screaming about Dajuon Johnson, his cousin, who was shot in the neck while standing next to a gas pump at that same BP station last June.

Several days later, Johnson died of his wound at Regions Hospital. His murder remains unsolved. So on Friday, as his fellow citizens came to pitch in with brooms and gloves and garbage bags, Conley came to stand at the scene of a crime that they likely knew nothing about.

There were overlapping echoes of loss, pain, and fury on University in the aftermath of protests in the area that lasted late into Thursday night and included a standoff at a Target and fires at a liquor store, an auto parts store, and a cellular phone store, and an Ethiopian restaurant.

No one paid Conley much attention. The morning’s focus was on cleaning up the still-smoldering Midway, with the St. Paul Fire Department working to subdue the fire at the AutoZone from the night before.

But Conley worked to tell his story anyway. “R.I.P. Dajuon Johnson,” he yelled, again and again. “Unsolved murder, 2019.”

“He was good-looking like me,” Conley said of his cousin. “It runs in the family.”

Conley is St. Paul through and through. He has the old Minnesota Twins ‘M’ logo tattooed in red above his right wrist. And yet in the midst of the cleanup on Friday, he stood in front of the BP and kicked an empty, aged Pioneer Press box to the ground in frustration.

Conley displays his arm tattoos, which depict the state of Minnesota and the old Minnesota Twins ‘m’ logo. Photo by Kori Suzuki ’21.

Conley grew up on Minnehaha Avenue and then Marshall Avenue and attended Como Park High School before moving to Iowa to play basketball at Southeastern Community College. He was a forward, 6’4, 210, and even with his playing days years behind him, he cut an imposing figure.

“Lack of love for another human being,” Conley said. “Lack of love. That’s it. They did not love George. They killed him. They did not love my cousin. They killed him.”

When Conley was houseless for a time, the BP station was a safe haven. One of the overnight workers at the 24-hour station, a man named Carlos, would welcome people coming off of the Green Line out of the cold and into the store.

On occasion, Conley needed that help. Johnson, his cousin, did not.

“He was a baller, man,” Conley said of his cousin. “He never fell down in life like I did.”

If you hear Conley tell it, the BP was a bright spot for him at a difficult time. Others saw it very differently. St. Paul police had identified it as a “hotbed of criminal activity” and the city received numerous complaints from neighbors about noise, trash, and loitering.

It also, notably, was consistently uncooperative with police investigations and requests for surveillance video — making it a target for city officials.

“The city is seeing the extra activity, but they didn’t see the generosity of the store clerk,” Conley said. “They knew they were putting their business in jeopardy by extending their hands to people who couldn’t help themselves. And look what happened.”

This March, by a unanimous 7-0 vote, the St. Paul City Council revoked the station’s business and liquor licenses. Since then, it has been closed — a fact lost on onlookers who snapped photos of its hollowed-out interior thinking it was a casualty of the previous day’s protests.

“They don’t know what’s going on out here,” Conley said. “They ain’t out here. They come jumping out here today like they know what is going on, but… this place has been closed down. People have been dying up here. R.I.P. George, but R.I.P. Dajuon, because his murder is still unsolved.”

One of the few people who approached and spoke with Conley understood fully where he was coming from.

Hillary Parsons, a criminal defense attorney at Caplan & Tamburino, drove from her home in the Summit-Hill neighborhood to University — against her fiance’s wishes — to observe the landscape on the morning after. Speaking with Conley, she called herself a “tourist.”

“I get to come here when it’s safe and look around,” she said. “That doesn’t quite seem right to me, but I’m doing it.”

Until Friday morning, Parsons had been removed from the protests — if not mentally, then at least physically.

“We stayed up pretty late last night watching and listening to police scanners and ended up going to bed feeling relatively safe,” Parsons said. “But again, I live in a nice, white neighborhood. My guess is that they’ll open fire if [protests] start going on there. They’ll start using live rounds if this goes into the Summit area. And I think that’s bullshit.”

Considering the word from the White House — “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” — Parsons has the right idea. That is why she is supportive of the protests, even as they turn destructive.

“Taking one knee isn’t working,” she said.

In a city shaped by redlining and freeways and unequal funding, Parsons walked away to find her car and return to her Summit-Hill house, away from the flames. Conley remained outside of the BP, standing next to “BLM.” graffiti, again raising his voice to the street.

It was not lost on a number of observers across the country on Friday that George Floyd’s autopsy revealed that he suffered from hypertensive heart disease — one of several underlying conditions that the charging doctor blamed for contributing to his death.

The autopsy demonstrated again that the physical, generational trauma of black death in America is blamed for black death in America, even when a white officer puts his knee on the neck of a black man and holds it there for nearly ten minutes.

The hypertension has been building. The outrage has been building. The murder of George Floyd ignited it. Now, from coast to coast, people are speaking their truths and fighting for their lives — in the middle of protests and on their margins. Joe Conley knows it.

“Everybody’s doing something,” he said. “I’m proud of that. Do it the right way: positive. Love.”

]]>https://themacweekly.com/78112/home/amid-the-protests-echoes-of-past-pain-on-university-ave/feed/0Macalester to stick to September 2 start datehttps://themacweekly.com/78110/covid-19-at-macalester/macalester-to-stick-to-september-2-start-date/
https://themacweekly.com/78110/covid-19-at-macalester/macalester-to-stick-to-september-2-start-date/#respondFri, 29 May 2020 23:57:52 +0000https://themacweekly.com/?p=78110On Friday, May 29, Provost and Dean of the Faculty Karine Moe announced via a campus-wide email that the fall 2020 semester will begin on Sept. 2 as previously scheduled. As of now, the college plans to hold classes in person. Both the fall and spring semesters will be broken into two 7.5-week modules, during...

]]>On Friday, May 29, Provost and Dean of the Faculty Karine Moe announced via a campus-wide email that the fall 2020 semester will begin on Sept. 2 as previously scheduled. As of now, the college plans to hold classes in person.

Both the fall and spring semesters will be broken into two 7.5-week modules, during which students will take two four-credit classes. Moe wrote that the breakdown into modules will facilitate accommodations for students who are ill, in a high-risk category or unable to come to class.

This structure also offers more flexibility to transition between remote and in-person learning if necessary.

“While we all want to be back on campus together, we acknowledge that our plans must be flexible enough to effectively respond to public health guidance in a manner that prioritizes the health of our community and the experience of our students,” Moe wrote in the email.

This decision changes the structure for the next year of instruction at Macalester. In addition to splitting the next two semesters into shorter modules, a module will also be offered in summer 2021.

“Given the unpredictable nature of the pandemic, we wanted to be sure to remain flexible throughout the academic year,” Moe wrote in an email to The Mac Weekly. “Making the decision now helps departments plan as they work to rebuild the course schedule.”

With this shift, students will need to re-register for classes. Details about the move-in process, dates of breaks and class offerings are still to be determined; Moe wrote in the announcement that students should expect more information in the next month addressing these remaining questions.

According to a memo Moe sent to faculty and staff on Friday, May 29, she plans to meet with department chairs next week “to give guidance and support for rebuilding the course schedule.”

Senior leadership — including both outgoing President Brian Rosenberg and incoming President Suzanne Rivera — made this decision based on input from Macalester’s Educational Policy and Governance Committee (EPAG), Faculty Advisory Council (FAC) and Infectious Disease Task Force (IDTF).

This group will continue making decisions for the coming academic year with advice from these groups and from state health guidelines.

Moe wrote in an email to The Mac Weekly that the senior leadership is still hoping to make a decision on the mode of learning — online, in-person or some combination — by July 1, the deadline for first year students to defer their enrollment.

Usually, the incoming class enrolls in first-year courses (FYCs) in the fall — four-credit courses reserved for first years that aim to help students transition to Macalester’s academics. Those might look different this year with the altered calendar. Moe wrote in an email to The Mac Weekly that Macalester’s Educational Policy and Governance (EPAG) committee is creating a new plan for these.

Spanish professor Toni Dorca had planned to teach two courses in the fall, one of which is an FYC. Dorca wrote in an email to The Mac Weekly that professors are still working through how these changes will look in the classroom.

“I don’t really know how the new schedule will affect our teaching in general,” Dorca wrote. “For the FYC, it will be a matter of condensing the readings in a shorter period of time.”

Language classes will also function differently than most classes — these will be taught across both modules in a semester for five credits total. Moe stated in the memo that EPAG recommended this model.

Moe also noted in the memo that this shift will pose a challenge for the coming year.

“I want to acknowledge and appreciate that this will require significant work on the part of faculty and staff,” Moe wrote.

While reformatting semester-long classes to fit a 7.5-week schedule will require some rethinking, Dorca said that may be easier from a teaching perspective than going fully remote again.

“The difference maker for me is the remote vs. the in-person teaching,” Dorca wrote. “If we can do the latter, with the appropriate safety measures, everything becomes much easier.”